2022-11-03 A Prayer: Personal Prudence

O Lord, as those who have trodden paths that others are not familiar with, we beg for assistance and the right to wrestle and practice our avoidance of the familiar. We find it so easy, or rather, we are fearful about saying “No”, because of experience teaching us that we have not the strength, have not the constitution to sign our name, even if that is to a good thought. So we teach each other by the patient avoidance and deep recognition of what is the familiar and the ease.

Also see wrapped up in our peace and faith is verbal acknowledgement just of the basic and the shared faith. Where others are walking a more sheltered, more trusted, history and present-day path, we simply learn to say our goodbyes in such manner as to start within our own hearts: what ease and simple concessions do we today renounce? What goodbyes and determined permanence do we bless in our hearts? That is, can we try once more the patient and tested route, with no fear of blaspheming against our own constitution. If we fall away, so be it, we shall know You to be helping out myriad times again.

See us on a perch; see us set sail; see us fashionable in some positive sense, as those who know where Grace is needed, where Understanding is radical, where we can all use a little understanding. So thank You for fellow travelers, and just keep us patient, circumscribed, not trying to take on the whole world out there, but fashioned after a patient Call peculiar to ourselves this day.

See us unique and called, unto sober assessment of all that beckons us this day. See the things we try to justify, as well as those where some act of discernment does make us over anew in deep and wonderful ways, a panorama to look out upon, longing to be of use to our fellow or gal, because we, as for ourselves, have coped in one simple way with temptation or familiar paths. So see us post-confession or honesty now healed and entering upon strange new lands, lands where some Right and Goodness is mysteriously seen anew, as though a long lost friend has returned.

Strong medicine, we ask, for courses of ruts and easy acquiescence to what we in times past indulged. Grant us home and patience, minus the easy path, if that is Your will. Separate the fact of living from those things that detract from Your majesty in our lives. See us not obsessed with ways we are tempted and are different, but instead in love with a mission and calling, no longer sad for our goodbyes but confident all things are given back to us in the sequel, in the tomorrow, in some way You account for us to become strengthened even when the world hates our strength. Even when the world has left wreckage in so many lives. Grant Peace, when peace in times past has brought on an avalanche of guilty thoughts and recollections. See us overcome, even though forbidden, the guilt and shame that all people do share.

Thank You for the right to be part of a parcel called Mission, and called Purpose. We love those You bless in our path, seeing that indeed some seem to have a different kind of temptation, different ruts or no ruts at all. Different goodbyes and different origin stories; our origin is in an alternative universe: in our own designs we languished, seeking escapes, creating ruts, knowing You present even and especially when we were on a dying path, a failed path, an unimpressive path. There, and especially there, we ask for remembrance that we might thereby heal, for we were languishing. Help us be relevant to one another in this Gospel message. There is so much to find, and we are those strangely calmed even amidst a world on edge.

We pray all this in Your Name, Amen.